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By : Nicole Mazzeo
10 min read
It's hard to express how bad things are in Gaza right now. I have an internet friend who lives there and it is heart-wrenching to hear him fear death, and recently, mourn the death of a close childhood friend.
In less than four months, Israel has killed 1 in 84 people in Gaza. For comparison, Covid has killed 1 in 280 people in the U.S. over the course of three years. There's a reason that people are using the word genocide to describe what's going on.
As U.S. residents, it's on us to push our government to stop funding this mass violence. But there are so many kind and caring people who 1. don't grasp the gravity of what's going on, or 2. don't know what they can do to help.
Over the past few months, I've been making zines in an attempt to reach these people. Zines have a long history of being used in justice movements. This is because they're inexpensive to make and they are completely uncensored. With social media's shadow bans and the mainstream media's pro-Israel bias, zines offer a valuable alternative. In my zines, I aim to humanize people in Gaza, and then invite the reader to take action. I share the words of Palestinians who are experiencing the violence firsthand.
Conveniently, my Gazan friend is a writer. He's been writing from a personal perspective about what it's like to be in Gaza right now. I told him that I'll publish anything that he writes, since he is facing censorship on social media and doesn't have a way to get his words shared with a wide audience.
In the words of a Gazan doctor, "No one hears us. The world is watching how we are slaughtered." This is what I am trying to combat with my zines.
I've made all my Palestine zines available to print for free at pleasurepie.org/printables. I want them to be distributed as widely as possible. Give them to your friends, put them in little free libraries in your neighborhood, bring them anywhere that people gather and put them on a table with a sign that says "Free zines!"
Individually, we don't have much power to stop the violence. But collectively, we have so much power. Israel would not be able to carry out this violence without the enormous amount of support that the U.S. gives them. If massive numbers of U.S. residents call our reps daily to push for a ceasefire, go to protests, blockade major roads with "Free Palestine" banners and human chains, and participate in general strikes, our government will be increasingly unable to ignore us. We can do this. We have to.
—Nicole Mazzeo
You can find the author’s printable Palestine zines at pleasurepie.org/printables.
Originally published in-print in Boston Compass Newspaper #166 February 2024
Check out all the art and columns of February's Boston Compass at www.issuu.com/bostoncccompass